Americans are surprisingly well-informed about how Ebola works

Despite what seems like widespread panic over Ebola cases in the United States, most Americans have a pretty good sense of how the disease spreads and are fairly confident that the US can contain an outbreak, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Nearly all of the 1,503 Americans surveyed know that Ebola is transmitted through the blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease and showing symptoms, and roughly two-thirds know it can't be transmitted through the air.

But the same Kaiser poll also found most Americans don't know that a person can only transmit Ebola while showing symptoms.

Americans also seem fairly confident the disease will not spread much further in the US. About 73 percent of Americans told Kaiser that Ebola will likely be contained to a small number of cases in the US, and the same number said they have a fair amount or great deal of confidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could contain an Ebola outbreak if it occurred in their area.

To learn more about Ebola, read Vox's explainer.

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